I have a Dell Poweredge T110 that I recently acquired as a hands on learning tool for server administration and virtualization. Ive gotten it up and running with ESXi 5.5 U2 and it works just fine. But I think ot might have an issue overloading the internal NIC with multiple guests, so I installed a Broadcom 5609 dual 10/100/1000 NIC. Now ESXi wont finish loading. I installed the drivers from the VMWare site, but when it gets to "Loading bnx2 module" on the console it hangs for a second and then goes to a PSOD. With the card removed and the drivers still in place it loads fne. So Im guessing its a deiver issue. Does anyone know how to correct this, or where I can find the correct driver?
Maybe check wethere there is a firmware update available for the NIC itself. Can't even hurt if the server's BIOS and other firmware is up to date, too.
Updated the firmware on the card from 5.something to 7.10 using a Server 2008 install. Still PSOD.